Photo Cropping Experiments. . .

One of the 19 figures currently underway whose face turned out rather nicely. Notice the darker pigment in his eye sockets and on either side of his nose and mouth?

Monkeying around this Wednesday evening with the online photograph editor Pixlr.com, which allows you to achieve many of the same effects as Photoshop Elements, although the names o certain functions differ between the two, which makes the learning curve a bit steep. In particular, I have brightened and sharpened the photograph of the current works-in-progress here as well as run the auto levels (colors?) adjustment function before finally cropping it in four ways.

What I intended was to highlight is how, when you apply your fleshtone thinly enough, the pigment will settle in the eye sockets and along the sides of the noses and mouths as it dries, making these areas a bit darker. Conversely, the cheekbones, noses, and chins will show up a bit lighter (remember the white basecoat?) when the paint is thinner, providing instant shading and highlighting with neither the muss, nor the fuss of the three-shade method that is currently so popular. You may not care for the my more subtle results, but it works or me. See what you think.

-- Stokes

Here is a close-up of two of the better faces before the completion of mustaches and dressed hair.

Here's a third face on another figure that I am pleased with. Many of the RSM95 figures exhibit faces that are simply full of wonderful character. The late Seve Hezzlewood was indeed a master sculptor.

And here is the entire batch of 19 figures once again after sharpening of the raw image and fooling around with a few adjustments and filters in Pixlr's online editor.

Comments

Der Alte Fritz said…

I think that you could probably go a little more darker.

8:05 AM

Conrad Kinch said…

I think Fritz might have the right of it Stokes. It's the eternal struggle getting enough light on the figure without blowing out the highlights, made all the more difficult by your light and lively painting style. Have you tried photographing them under natural light?

3:57 AM

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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